New Website, Sponsor a Car Seat & TWO Raffles!!!

If you've been over to the foundation website over the past couple of days, you will have noticed, we've had a little face lift. Our graphic designer Heather McMeekan and our new webmaster, Ben Davis have been working hard to bring you our new look. We hope you like it. If you have any feedback, or there are things you would like to see on there, don't hesitate to get in touch with us!

We are very excited to launch with this new website a new fundraising program that will give you, our supporters the chance to make a huge impact on the foundation. We are so happy to introduce 'Sponsor a car seat' to you. With this program, over the course of a year by regular, automatic payments, you will have donated one (or more) car seats to a child. Each seat costs the foundation $200 to donate - by making 4 quarterly paymeents of $50, or 12 monthly payments of $16.67 - you will have provided one seat by the end of a year. We have provided you the flexibility to set the frequency and the amount of the recurring payment to suit your preferences. We can't wait to get our first sponsors to sign up!!!

We would also like the opportunity to give back to you too! It's been a while since we ran a Raffle, so we are running, not one, but TWO!! Here's what's on offer:

Infant Raffle – In this prize package we have a Britax Travel System in Red Mill (includes Chaperone car seat, base and stroller in matching fabric), a sling (your choice of style) and a Pacimal (your choice of animal).



Young Child Raffle – In this prize package we have a top of the line Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL car seat, a car seat poncho, a Fleurville lunchbox bag in either Coco Stripes or Digital Camo and a $100 gift certificate to Hip Monkey.



To enter either Raffle, a ticket is $10. Multiples of $10 will purchase multplie tickets. You wll receive your ticket number through email. The raffles both run until midnight Jan 31st and the winner will be announced on Feb 1st in the blog, on Twitter, on Facebook and be notified through email.

Please watch out for our new newsletter which will be shortly published.

The foundation board members and volunteers want to wish you all the very happiest of Holidays and thank you all deeply for all the support and love you have given the foundation over the past year. Here's to a very successful 2010!

Graham family donation

We recently donated a Sunshine Kids Radian XT to the Graham family.

The Graham family have three children - to get three across in their vehicle, they needed a Radian in the mix.

Many thanks to CPS Tech Brett Bates for teaching the family how install and correctly use this seat.

Each seat the foundation donates costs approximately $200. We have a waiting list of ~100 families at any given time - all consisting of children who are at risk whilst they await our ability to assist. Please consider a donation to the foundation of any size you can afford, to help keep more children safe. You can donate using PayPal to the right of our blog, or you can donate using Debit/Credit/Check. Details are here. Thank you so much for your support and dedication to keeping children safe!

Help the foundation get $5000 in the next 24 hours!!!

iGive.com is going to attempt to donate $5,000 in just 24 hours to Kyle David Miller Foundation and other causes.

For each person who joins iGive using the special link below and does just one web search on their site between now and noon Thursday, they'll give Kyle David Miller Foundation
a dollar.

5,000 new members, $5,000. No purchase necessary.

Of course, if you search more (or buy something)you'll earn even more money for Kyle David Miller Foundation. Right now, they're donating $.02 per search and a bonus $5 for that first purchase plus the usual percentage.

This is the link:
http://www.igive.com/welcome/warm_reg_promo.cfm?c=42845

The details:
- Offer active between now and 11:59 a.m., December 17, 2009 (Chicago time).
- New members only (never have been an iGive member previously). All the normal rules of membership, searching, and purchasing apply, their site has the details.
- Once they've given away $5,000, the offer ends.

Newton family donation

Meet the Newton family!

We donated a total of 4 Britax Regents to the family for their 8, 6, 4 and 2 year old (not pictured)children. Normally we would encourage a family to train an 8 year old to sit correctly in a booster seat, but this particular 8 year old is just over 40lbs and on the smaller side, so we complied with her parents wishes that she remain harnessed for as long as possible.

Many thanks to CPS tech Beth Heifner for installing and teaching the family on installation and usage of these seats.

Each seat the foundation donates costs approximately $200. We have a waiting list of ~100 families at any given time - all consisting of children who are at risk whilst they await our ability to assist. Please consider a donation to the foundation of any size you can afford, to help keep more children like the Newton children safe. You can donate using PayPal to the right of our blog, or you can donate using Debit/Credit/Check. Details are here. Thank you so much for your support and dedication to keeping children safe!

Davey family donation

Meet the Davey family!

We donated a Britax Regent to this family for their 7 year old son.

CPS Tech Dianne Robertson performed the installation and education session on this seat and we thank her immensely. Dianne also checked the two other restraints in the vehicle at this same appointment and made some minor adjustments.


Each seat the foundation donates costs approximately $200. We have a waiting list of ~100 families at any given time - all consisting of children who are at risk whilst they await our ability to assist. Please consider a donation to the foundation of any size you can afford, to help keep more children like the Davey boy safe. You can donate using PayPal to the right of our blog, or you can donate using Debit/Credit/Check. Details are here. Thank you so much for your support and dedication to keeping children safe!

Munch family donation

Meet the Munch family!

What a car full of car seats! The foundation donated three Sunshine Kids Radians, a Sunshine Kids Montery booster to be used with an EZ-On 86-Y harness which we also donated.

Many thanks to Child Passenger Safety Technician Judi Lambert and her husband, who gets to be featured on our blog too!



You see him here wielding a drill for a very good reason.....he installed the heavy duty anchor for the 86-Y in the vehicle and drilled through the bottom of the Munch vehicle. What a talented family the Lamberts are!!!

It's great to know that these cuties are all riding safely!


The Radians worked out perfectly to get this three across installation you see above. Judi also turned the youngest Munch family member back to rear-facing as this is 5 times safer than forward-facing. All children who can fit rear-facing in their convertible seats should remain this way until they outgrow the seat either by height or weight, whichever comes first.

Each seat the foundation donates costs approximately $200. We have a waiting list of ~100 families at any given time - all consisting of children who are at risk whilst they await our ability to assist. Please consider a donation to the foundation of any size you can afford, to help keep more children like the Munch family safe. You can donate using PayPal to the right of our blog, or you can donate using Debit/Credit/Check. Details are here. Thank you so much for your support and dedication to keeping children safe!

2 month old is ejected from vehicle

Thankfully this two month old was miraculously uninjured as a result of this crash, but this serves to highlight the importance of dressing your child correctly in their car seat (not bulky layers, unlike Desiree McLaughlin's 5 month old who was featured in the piece dressed in a snow suit in his car seat) and to tighen that harness correctly.

• As a reminder, to ensure your child is correclty restrained in their car seat during the colder months, do not dress the child in thick coats, buntings or layers.
• A thin fleece jacket or blanket over the child following securing in the seat is sufficient to keep them warm.
• Ensure the harness is correctly tightened by performing the pinch test (attempting to horizontally pinch the harness together and failing) at the collarbone of the child.
• Place the chest clip level with the child's underams.
• Do not use unregulated items such as the BundleMe in your infant seat.

As we discussed previously, thick layers between the child and the harness will compress in a crash causing the harness to be too loose. This can result in ejection of the child from the seat.

Why is the JJ Cole BundleMe unsafe??

I refer you to an excellent blog post by Donna Eng of Car Seat Ponco here.

Read. Digest. Tell your friends.